Computer freezes while playing

[nlz242]

I'm getting hard freezes while playing, can be 5 minutes into a session or an 1h.
When I say hard freezes, i mean the screen go dark, sound glitches and I have to power off the computer holding the power button for 5s.

I know hard freezes would typically point toward hardware issues, so before trying to diagnose what's wrong with Cyberpunk in particular, I went ahead and disassembled my computer. Cleaned every heatsink and fans. Noticed my CPU watercooler was starting to show signs of aging, so i wen't ahead and got a new one. Made sure all the temps were in check. Ran IntelBurnTest, Furmark and the both at the same time. System was and still is rock solid.

So I started digging deeper into Cyberpunk, as it is the only game where I get issues, found a couple of threads with troubleshooting infos...
I just got Cyberpunk (thru Steam), so I have no idea if 1.52 would have been stable on my computer...
Here's everything i tried so far :
* Disabled any and every remaining overlays, xbox game bar and replay recording were already off.
* Disabled XMP (which was the only "overclock" i had going on)
* Cleaned (safe mode amdcleanuputility) drivers and reinstalled them. I tried 22.9.1, 22.9.2 and the latest WHQL drivers 22.5.2.
* Tried changing the Cascaded shadows settings, as this seem to be a current know issue.
* Adjusted settings so that the game is less hard on my GPU (this lowered power usage reported in AMD's software from 250w to 125-130w)
** Enabled FSR 1.0 - Ultra Quality
** Limited framerate to half of my display's refresh (72 fps, on 144hz) with vsync on @ 72hz.

Nothing helped.
Also, since it hard freezes, the game produces no dump/log of the crash.

While playing, GPU temps are around 65c (150f) and CPU temps are around 45c (115f).

Haven't seen much noise on the forum about freezes in 1.6, but there are people complaing on reddit, fwiw.
Right now, my only other idea is to install 1.52 using some weird steam depot downloader thingy and try to see if i also freeze in 1.52...
Installed 1.52 using steamdepotdownloader... started a new game, as my 1.6 savegames aren't compatible with 1.52... Ended up crashing after 5 minutes. I'm starting to be out of ideas. I'll try and run a burning test on my gpu for the night, see how that goes.

System specs :
Intel i7 10700k with Corsair H150i Pro XT AIO watercooler
32gb DDR4 - Corsair cmk32gx4m2z3600c18
Asus TUF 6800 XT
Samsung 980 evo nvme
Enermaxx 1000w powersupply
Windows 11 22h2

DxDiag attached, fwiw.

 

[Notserious80]

Im not sure if it happends too AMD cards but :

Update: NVIDIA GeForce Cards Have issues after Windows 11 2022 (22H2) Update

Microsoft is slowly rolling out the new Windows 11 2022 update to end-users; unfortunately, there are many reports that there is an issue with GeForce graphics cards, in specific some users even see ...

www.guru3d.com

Also would help if you could post the crash reports if there is any (should be able too find them by going too your CP2077 folder and looking for the crash rapport tool, starting it and clicking whats in this rapport its in a hidden folder somewhere. Should be 2 txt files in that folder) there generally some hint as too why it crashed in there.

 

[nlz242]

As mentionned, can't find any crash logs/dumps... I think the game crashes so hard (whole computer freezes, not just cyberpunk's processs) that it doesn't get to save them.
I do see the two text files you are talking about, I think, but they both only contain a single line of text saying "
Registered crash info file..."
Files are :
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Cyberpunk 2077\Cyberpunk2077.exe-20220928-002030-10760-11096.txt"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Cyberpunk 2077\REDEngineErrorReporter.exe-20220928-002030-3492-4608.txt"

Running "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Cyberpunk 2077\bin\x64\CrashReporter\CrashReporter.exe" does nothing (no window opens up)
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Cyberpunk 2077\bin\x64\REDEngineErrorReporter.exe" expects arguments :
Usage: <processID> [debug[level]]

As for the nvidia + Windows 11 22h2 issue, i wouldn't know if AMD has the same issues, but the fixes are obviously for nvidia only.

 

[Notserious80]

Hmm trying too remember where the crash reports were. think it was like C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Cyberpunk2077 or CDPR. Theres alot of hidden folders so you need to enable se hidden folders.

Post automatically merged: Sep 28, 2022

As for the nvidia + Windows 11 22h2 issue, i wouldn't know if AMD has the same issues, but the fixes are obviously for nvidia only.

YEa it was atotal shot in the dark. Without a crash reason its kinda hard too diagnose. Does it run longer if you lower settings to the lowest settings possible?

 

[nlz242]

Hmm trying too remember where the crash reports were. think it was like C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Cyberpunk2077 or CDPR. Theres alot of hidden folders so you need to enable se hidden folders.

Nothing in LocalLow or Roaming that sounds CDPR / Cyberpunk / Redengine
I have :
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\CD Projekt Red\Cyberpunk 2077
* CrashInfo.json -> 0 bytes, empty file

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\REDEngine
* CrashReporter.log -> Has some stack traces in it, but the timestamps matches when i tried to run both "Reporter" executable files and the stacktraces complain about not finding the ReportQueue folder under C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\REDEngine\ReportQueue

YEa it was atotal shot in the dark. Without a crash reason its kinda hard too diagnose. Does it run longer if you lower settings to the lowest settings possible?

The time it takes to crash seems random, sometimes it will crash within 5 minutes using low settings, sometimes it will go for an hour... Same goes for higher settings, it can go for 5 minutes or an hour... haven't seen a correlation between settings and time it takes to crash...

I've been running FurMark for about an hour now, GPU is steady state at 72c (162f) using 272w.
I have three hypothesis right now...
1. Transient load, perhaps my old-ish (but 1000w) powersupply has a hard time dealing with them and the way Cyberpunk uses my GPU generates transient loads... however, having the settings set to limit framerate and such should mitigate that, so I'm not so sure...
2. A certain API Call / Instruction that isn't called so often gets called and causes the freeze...
3. My windows installation is somewhat b0rked... I have been running the same installation for many years now. I think i even upgraded it all the way from Windows 7 back in the days...

So the next step, I think, will be to reinstall Windows on another drive (i've got a couple around that i can use for that)... I'll make sure to install a previous version to eliminate potential 22h2 issues... Maybe even Windows 10 21h2... But that will have to wait for the weekend as I'm going out of town for a few days tomorrow.

 

[Notserious80]

1. Transient load, perhaps my old-ish (but 1000w) powersupply has a hard time dealing with them and the way Cyberpunk uses my GPU generates transient loads... however, having the settings set to limit framerate and such should mitigate that, so I'm not so sure...

Think i hade that on my 3090 at times. Way too big load for a milisec and pretty much my psu would shut off when it happend.

3. My windows installation is somewhat b0rked... I have been running the same installation for many years now. I think i even upgraded it all the way from Windows 7 back in the days.

Hmm not impossible. Could be some errant old program/driver file or something. If you can it might be a good ide too reformat, i allways hate the aftermath tho ^^

Nothing in LocalLow or Roaming that sounds CDPR / Cyberpunk / Redengine
I have :
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\CD Projekt Red\Cyberpunk 2077
* CrashInfo.json -> 0 bytes, empty file

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\REDEngine
* CrashReporter.log -> Has some stack traces in it, but the timestamps matches when i tried to run both "Reporter" executable files and the stacktraces complain about not finding the ReportQueue folder under C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\REDEngine\ReportQueue

Seems it has no chance of making the report then. Seen some people get them even if the pc locks up or hard crashes. Bad luck since it could give a clue.. think that why the crash reporter does not start, it need a report too send too do that.

 

[nlz242]

Fresh Windows 11 (22h2 still) install and still crash, i was able to play with high-settings (gpu @220-230w) for about 30 minutes before it froze again.
I'll grab a new power supply, I'm gonna need a new one as I was thinking of upgrading my GPU sooner than later so may as well get all the pre-reqs done before-hand.
If that doesn't fix it, not too sure what i'll do then... If i could reproduce the crash in other games, I'd RMA the graphics card but seeing as this is only in Cyberpunk and pretty intermitent, they'll probably just return the card saying it's fine...

 

[Notserious80]

Fresh Windows 11 (22h2 still) install and still crash, i was able to play with high-settings (gpu @220-230w) for about 30 minutes before it froze again.
I'll grab a new power supply, I'm gonna need a new one as I was thinking of upgrading my GPU sooner than later so may as well get all the pre-reqs done before-hand.
If that doesn't fix it, not too sure what i'll do then... If i could reproduce the crash in other games, I'd RMA the graphics card but seeing as this is only in Cyberpunk and pretty intermitent, they'll probably just return the card saying it's fine...

Im more inclined too think its not a hardware failure, atleast not yet. Not sure how big the spikes are on amd but its alot lower then what that psu should be able too handle... how old is it and is it platinum/gold?

 

[nlz242]

Im more inclined too think its not a hardware failure, atleast not yet. Not sure how big the spikes are on amd but its alot lower then what that psu should be able too handle... how old is it and is it platinum/gold?

Yeah, same, and I think the spikes aren't as big on AMD as they are on Nvidia, plus this is "only" a 6800xt, not a 6900xt+...
But the power supply is quite old, it's a 13 or 14 years old Enermax galaxxy 1000w. No certification on it, as they weren't such a big deal in 2007-2008... It powered SLi setups for a while and did great but I'm thinking with ATX 3.0 around the corner, maybe it's time to retire the old champ eh!

 

[Notserious80]

Yeah, same, and I think the spikes aren't as big on AMD as they are on Nvidia, plus this is "only" a 6800xt, not a 6900xt+...
But the power supply is quite old, it's a 13 or 14 years old Enermax galaxxy 1000w. No certification on it, as they weren't such a big deal in 2007-2008... It powered SLi setups for a while and did great but I'm thinking with ATX 3.0 around the corner, maybe it's time to retire the old champ eh!

Yea pretty old. is probably time too swap it out but im not sure its going too fix your problem sadly. Does it crash at low settings totally random too and lock up the pc? Crashes if you just stand still? Im trying too figure out a way too get a crash report, have you checked mslogs after the crash too see if something was logged?

 

[TonyRazyBRA]

Hello, just to confirm what author said about people complaining on reddit :
Constant crashing and hard freezing on 1.6 (PC) : cyberpunkgame (reddit.com)

 

[nlz242]

When ahead and grabbed a new power supply, a seasonic prime gx-850. Didn't help with crashes.

Yea pretty old. is probably time too swap it out but im not sure its going too fix your problem sadly. Does it crash at low settings totally random too and lock up the pc? Crashes if you just stand still? Im trying too figure out a way too get a crash report, have you checked mslogs after the crash too see if something was logged?

I went and lowered the settings as much as I could and capped framerate at 30 fps, gpu power usage was below 50w and the game looks like absolute dog sh*t. Froze after 20 minutes or so, then I changed a few settings to see if anything changed and it froze instantly. Still no logs, still hard freezes without any recovery possible besides am hard reboot so still can't get crash reports. Windows logs are also not showing anything interesting other than messages saying the computer did not shutdown properly.

Really, at this point, I'm out of ideas and I think I'm ready to just call the game broken. Any and every stress tests I run has no issues, the computer runs all the other games i throw at it without a problem...

 

[TonyRazyBRA]

When ahead and grabbed a new power supply, a seasonic prime gx-850. Didn't help with crashes.

I went and lowered the settings as much as I could and capped framerate at 30 fps, gpu power usage was below 50w and the game looks like absolute dog sh*t. Froze after 20 minutes or so, then I changed a few settings to see if anything changed and it froze instantly. Still no logs, still hard freezes without any recovery possible besides am hard reboot so still can't get crash reports. Windows logs are also not showing anything interesting other than messages saying the computer did not shutdown properly.

Really, at this point, I'm out of ideas and I think I'm ready to just call the game broken. Any and every stress tests I run has no issues, the computer runs all the other games i throw at it without a problem...

As i said on this post, pretty sure it is game PC crashing :: Cyberpunk 2077 Technical Discussions (steamcommunity.com)

 

[Notserious80]

When ahead and grabbed a new power supply, a seasonic prime gx-850. Didn't help with crashes.

I went and lowered the settings as much as I could and capped framerate at 30 fps, gpu power usage was below 50w and the game looks like absolute dog sh*t. Froze after 20 minutes or so, then I changed a few settings to see if anything changed and it froze instantly. Still no logs, still hard freezes without any recovery possible besides am hard reboot so still can't get crash reports. Windows logs are also not showing anything interesting other than messages saying the computer did not shutdown properly.

Really, at this point, I'm out of ideas and I think I'm ready to just call the game broken. Any and every stress tests I run has no issues, the computer runs all the other games i throw at it without a problem...

Hmm if it freezes like that something is obviously very wrong.. It only happends in cp2077? I used too get crashes like that totally random too due too a background program for Ryzen core "overclock" named CTR 2.1. Since it was stable in everything except for cp it took ages too find. Could crash instantly or after 2 hours (even without OC on anything, just having it started). Totally random. But it dident hardlock and i got error messages... Power settings is also something that can mess with it, i allways set windows power manager too max power pretty much. Turn off all sleep modes and so on.

So it could really be any background program (some has overlays that arent obvious like xbox and so on). If it still crashes after exiting pretty much everything im out of ideas.

 

[nlz242]

Hmm if it freezes like that something is obviously very wrong.. It only happends in cp2077? I used too get crashes like that totally random too due too a background program for Ryzen core "overclock" named CTR 2.1. Since it was stable in everything except for cp it took ages too find. Could crash instantly or after 2 hours (even without OC on anything, just having it started). Totally random. But it dident hardlock and i got error messages... Power settings is also something that can mess with it, i allways set windows power manager too max power pretty much. Turn off all sleep modes and so on.

So it could really be any background program (some has overlays that arent obvious like xbox and so on). If it still crashes after exiting pretty much everything im out of ideas.

Only in CP2077. Randomly, without any correlation between graphics settings and time before it crashes. Reinstalled Windows, clean on a drive I had around, the game and installed nothing else than drivers, so I really doubt it's a random software. Played around with the cascaded shadow settings, nothing helped. Seems like many people with hard freezes are on AMD GPUs... But yeah at this point I really think it's a bug in cp2077 and it has nothing to do with my hardware.

Edit: Just played 3+ hours of Doom eternal, all maxed with Raytracing on and i turned off anything that could "help", like dynamic resolution... Graphics card was between 225w and 275w for the whole session. Not a single issue... i know Doom Eternal is bit less demanding than CP2077, but the graphics card was working hard, near 100% utilization. Rock stable.
So yeah, between other games working just fine and FurMark not causing any issues, I'm pretty sure it's a software issue.

Post automatically merged: Oct 1, 2022

Re-reinstalled Windows.
Windows 10 21h2 this time. On a clean drive. Only installed drivers (chipset, amd 22.9.2 (latest)).
Then Steam and CP2077.
Disabled xbox gamebar, steam overlay and AMD's overlay.
Was able to play for about 1h15 before it froze.
Good thing is now I'm sure this isnt a Windows 11 22h2 issue.

 

[Kaytani]

I've been dealing with the same issue since purchasing the game about a week ago. Except, my game just crashes to desktop, and I get the option to send a report. Happens between 2-20mins of playing.
I meet the recommended specs: i7-11700, RTX 3070, 16GB RAM, 970 EVO Plus

I've tried stress testing both my GPU and CPU, no overheating issues. I've also completely reset windows, reinstalled my graphics drivers, and reinstalled the game. Also tried playing around with settings like the cascading shadows. I play graphically demanding games all the time and this is the only one I have crashing issues with. I'm at a loss of what to do next other than try to get a refund.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

I've been dealing with the same issue since purchasing the game about a week ago. Except, my game just crashes to desktop, and I get the option to send a report. Happens between 2-20mins of playing.
I meet the recommended specs: i7-11700, RTX 3070, 16GB RAM, 970 EVO Plus

I've tried stress testing both my GPU and CPU, no overheating issues. I've also completely reset windows, reinstalled my graphics drivers, and reinstalled the game. Also tried playing around with settings like the cascading shadows. I play graphically demanding games all the time and this is the only one I have crashing issues with. I'm at a loss of what to do next other than try to get a refund.

Be sure that you try/verify all of these steps (if it's not already done).

My game crashes — Cyberpunk 2077 | Technical Support — CD PROJEKT RED

Welcome to CD PROJEKT RED Technical Support! Here you will find help regarding our games and services, as well as answers to frequently asked questions.

support.cdprojektred.com

(no overlay like Xbox Bar, no OC even your RAM)

 

[Kaytani]

Be sure that you try/verify all of these steps (if it's not already done).

My game crashes — Cyberpunk 2077 | Technical Support — CD PROJEKT RED

Welcome to CD PROJEKT RED Technical Support! Here you will find help regarding our games and services, as well as answers to frequently asked questions.

support.cdprojektred.com

(no overlay like Xbox Bar, no OC even your RAM)

Thanks but those were the first steps I tried. I did just notice I had XMP enabled in my BIOS, however disabling it did nothing, I crashed at 1min 47sec in.

This time I took a look at the crash report and see this in the 'stacktrace.txt' file-

Error reason: Assert
Expression: <Unknown>
Message: Gpu Crash for unknown reasons! Callstack here is probably irrelevant. Check if Breadcrumbs or Aftermath logged anything useful.
File: E:\R6.Release\dev\src\common\gpuApi\src\dx12\gpuApiDX12Error.cpp(42)

Strangely, I have no 'E:' drive at all so I'm not sure how to get to that file or why it's trying to use an E drive that doesn't exist...

 

[nlz242]

I've been dealing with the same issue since purchasing the game about a week ago. Except, my game just crashes to desktop, and I get the option to send a report. Happens between 2-20mins of playing.
I meet the recommended specs: i7-11700, RTX 3070, 16GB RAM, 970 EVO Plus

Wouldn't call it the same issue as what I'm getting is a hard freeze where I have to hold the power button for 5s to restart the system, no error report, no logs, nothing... Pretty different to diagnose. But good luck with your issue. I kinda gave up, spent many hours trying to get it working and i think I'm gonna wait for the next patch and see if that fixes it, it's too late for me to get a reimbursement from Steam...

Post automatically merged: Oct 1, 2022

Thanks but those were the first steps I tried. I did just notice I had XMP enabled in my BIOS, however disabling it did nothing, I crashed at 1min 47sec in.

This time I took a look at the crash report and see this in the 'stacktrace.txt' file-


Strangely, I have no 'E:' drive at all so I'm not sure how to get to that file or why it's trying to use an E drive that doesn't exist...

The E: drive is where CDPR built the game, it's a reference to the source code files used to build the game. The stacktrace is the stack of calls to different libraries/code files. It's useful for a dev to find out where, in the code, it crashed. But yeah, it's normal that you don't find those files on your system.

 

[DerpyBun420]

It's definitely the Patch (1.6) that's causing your game to hard-freeze (only Task Manager or Restart can fix it).

I know this because I am having the exact same game freezing issue that happens at completely random instances.

It could be when I'm just looking around in-game, looting stuffs, viewing inventory/crafting menu, basically any possible possible scenarios imaginable. At any time without any pre-emptive signs of freezing (Like sudden plunge of FPS, horrid lag etc.) at all.

Also, this freeze happens regardless of how beefy/optimized your PC is.
It's most likely code-related issues (Too broad to specify) of the game itself.

I did have mods installed (CET, RedScript, Red4Ext, ArchiveXL, TweakXL, CyberCMD, Input Loader, Vehicle Combat, Enhanced Craft, TDO, Better Netrunning, Hud Fixes, HUDitor, E3 2018 Lightning MOD, Weather Probability Rebalance etc.)
Pretty much game-fixes mods, QoL mods, and Enhancement mods.

I also noticed the game stutters like hell for a split second whenever I enter scan mode (TAB button by default) and try to scan stuffs.

C'mon, I just want to play my game.